For Simms, it
was in a time “when chivalry was at its lowest condition in Christian Europe,” that
the Chevalier Bayard provided the world, “the happiest illustration, in a
single great example, of its ancient pride and character,” and “the most
admirable model to the generous ambition of the young that we find in all the
pages of history.”[1] Simms wrote The Life of Chevalier Bayard, a biography of the late-medieval
French knight, to serve as an archetype of virtue for Americans. In 1845, Simms had written two articles on
Bayard for Southern and Western[2],
and ...